


Sometimes I'm sad

by EllieStormfound



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Depression, Jaskier Has Depression, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Anxiety, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sadness, and geralt is there for him, and he has a bad day, no beta we die like witchers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26620252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieStormfound/pseuds/EllieStormfound
Summary: Sometimes even Jaskier has a bad day and just feels sad and sometimes you just need someone to sit this out with you
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 32
Kudos: 106





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to do disclaimers: Jaskier has a bad day and I am drawing here from my own experience with mental illness, how I feel when I have a bad mental health day. He talks about feeling lonely and like a burden and that people don't want to be around him, when he is sad.  
> But there is a more or less happy ending

Jaskier had been unusually quiet during the day. While Geralt set up camp Jaskier had slipped away. Geralt assumed he had gone to relieve himself but when he didn’t return after a while the witcher started to worry. 

It was easy for him to trace Jaskier’s scent and after a few hundred meters Geralt saw the bard sitting at the edge of a cliff, looking out at the sea. Geralt made sure Jaskier could hear him approach over the loud crashing of waves to the cliffside about 20 meters below them. He didn’t want to startle the bard who sat precariously on the edge. 

“What are you doing here?” Geralt asked.

“Being alone,” Jaskier replied, not looking up at the witcher, but at the beautiful scenery.

“But you are…” Geralt searched for the right word, “distressed.”

Jaskier huffed and said, “well, people usually don’t like being around someone who is ‘distressed’.”

He was still not looking up at Geralt who was now standing beside him. He was not sure if he was allowed to sit down next to his bard.

“I am not people,” he said, “I am your…witcher.”

Jaskier’s short laugh didn’t sound amused, but sad and resigned. “My witcher,” he echoed flatly. He still looked out at the stormy ocean. 

In that moment Geralt noticed that the bard’s eyes were puffy and red. A few tears started to well up again.

“Geralt, don’t be mad, but I cannot do this now,” Jaskier said in a small voice that somehow felt like a whiplash. 

“What do you mean?” Geralt asked. 

“Please just…” the bard's voice broke and a tear ran down his cheek, “I cannot be my usual cheery self today and pretend it is not hurting me that you cannot even call me friend after over a decade.” The smile with which he finally looked up at Geralt felt like a stab to the witcher’s heart. It was so deeply sad and tired.

After a moment Geralt sat down next to him, “then don’t be your cheery self, you don’t have to pretend for my sake.”

“Don’t I, Geralt?” Jaskier asked. They sat in silence for a while, the only sounds were the wind rustling through the trees and the song of birds.

“You always say that I’m your witcher,” Geralt said after a moment, trying to find the right words, “like we belong together. I always thought about us as...more than just friends. I just never used the word.”

Quickly the bard looked up to him and away again. After a deep breath he said, “I never thought about it like that.”

Carefully he leaned his shoulder against Geralt’s, not much, just so they touched. 

“Is that why you are sad?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier shook his head, “no, not today.”

“Do you want to tell me why you are sad today?”

Jaskier drew up his knees and hugged them, placing his forehead on them.

“People usually leave me when I talk about being sad,” he said so quietly that only a witcher could hear it, “and I could not bear for you to walk away from me.”

There was another pause, Jaskier’s deep breath audible to Geralt, as if he was trying to calm himself. 

“I’m not leaving if you don’t want me to,” Geralt said.

They sat next to each other on the edge of the cliff, wind whirling their hair around and tugging at their cloaks. 

“I don’t actually know why I’m sad, I just sometimes am,” Jaskier said.

“Can I do something?” his witcher replied.

“Sit with me for a while?”

“As long as you need me,” Geralt said to his bard.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier asks Geralt what he means with 'more than friends'

They had sat like this for another hour or so, shoulder to shoulder, watching out at the dramatic scene of the stormy sea. Waves with white foamy crowns racing each other only to crash to the cliffside, spraying salty seawater up in the air.   
When Jaskier felt that he could breathe freely again without the thread of a sob just another second away they stood up and went back to their camp.

The next morning the bard awoke to Geralt already packing their bags. He blinked and watched the witcher for a while as Geralt calmly and methodically smoothed out and neatly rolled up his bedroll, packed their food, only leaving a bit of bread and cheese as breakfast for the bard.

Jaskier yawned to announce his waking to Geralt.  
“Good morning,” the bard said and Geralt turned around, eyebrows slightly furrowed.  
“Is it?” he asked in his deep voice. It was not in provocation but genuine curiosity after yesterday evening.  
“Yes, I think so,” the bard replied.  
Geralt looked at him for a moment longer, nodded and continued packing. He was in no haste, giving Jaskier the time he needed till he was ready to depart.

After a few minutes the bard cleared his throat and said, “Geralt, can I ask you something?”  
The witcher turned around to him and said, “yes.”  
“Yesterday, you said...that you consider me more than a friend. What did you mean by that?”  
The witcher looked at him, inhaled deeply and scratched the back of his head.  
“I…” he started, searching for words, “I don’t know how to put that into words.”   
Jaskier sighed and asked in a quiet voice, “would you try for me?”

Geralt looked closely at him, noded once and sat down on a log.  
It took a few minutes, Geralt looking at his hands, fumbling with a leather band he used to tie his hair. Jaskier gave him the time and stayed uncharacteristically quiet.  
“You know Maurice, in Beauclair? The one I always play gwent with when I am there?” Geralt looked up to see a confirming nod from the bard. “And Anna, the one with the tavern in Vergen? I always stop there when I pass through.” Geralt was looking at his hands again and licked his lips.  
“Those people and a few more, they are my friends.”  
When he stayed silent Jaskier echoed, “they are your friends,” and after a moment longer, “and I am not?”

The witcher looked up to see a pained look on Jaskier’s familiar face, “them...I see them once or twice a year. We will drink an ale or two, play a few rounds of gwent and talk for a while. But you…” Geralt looked up for a moment just to lower his gaze again to his fumbling hands, “Jaskier, we travel together weeks at a time. We share meals, clothes, beds. There is no one I spend so much...time and everything with. You sing about me, you help me tend to my wounds after a fight, you haggle with asshole aldermen to pay me decently…” there was a small smile playing over his lips, “you are not afraid to tell me things I don’t want to hear, because you know I need to hear them.” He looked up again at the bard and smiled deliberately.

“You see, you are not in the same...category as Maurice or Anna. You are...so much more than that. If one year I would not turn up at Anna’s tavern she would probably wonder where I was and maybe even worry a bit. But you, you go looking till you find me when you haven’t heard from me in two months. So that is why I haven’t called you friend...I don’t have a word for what you are to me.”

It didn’t often happen, but Jaskier was speechless as he looked at his usually so grumpy and taciturn witcher.   
“That is…” Jaskier began, “I...wow...Geralt, I’m…”  
“Speechless?” the witcher offered with a smirk, and with an embarrassed expression continued, “sorry.”  
Jaskier got up from his bedroll, walked over and sat next to Geralt on the log, leaning his shoulder to his like he had the evening before.   
“No, don’t be sorry,” he said quietly as not to spook the witcher, “it was good to hear that. Thank you.” And with all his might he thought as loudly as one could think, “I love you too,” and hoped his witcher would someday be ready to hear that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know how you liked this!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I would love to read your thoughts on this.
> 
> This fic is really personal, because I tried to put the shitty feelings I have at the bad days into words. Sometimes you are just sad/hurt/lonely... and there is nothing you can DO about it but sit it out and the best thing is when you have someone who will sit with you, who can bear witness to your suffering and will stay with you.


End file.
